1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to an outlet device for coin payout hoppers used in vending machines, game machines, coin exchangers or the like, in particular to an outlet chute adapted for guiding coins to a vertically extending escalator out of the coin payout hoppers.
2. Related Art Statement:
Hitherto, there is a coin payout hopper as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 62-45,588 comprising a hopper for storing coins, a rotary disc rotatably mounted on a supporting plate inclined at an angle to the horizontal within said hopper, a plurality of delivery pins spaced in the peripheral direction of the rotary disc and a delivery knife for guiding coins at an upper delivery portion to a discharge chute.
Some coin payout hoppers of the type mentioned above are provided with an outlet device which comprises an outlet chute for receiving coins discharged from the coin payout hopper, and an escalator which is connected at the lower end thereof to an upper outlet of the outlet chute and upwardly extended from the upper outlet for transferring coins to an upper coin tray by pushing up each coin in the escalator by the following coins pushed into the outlet chute out of the coin payout hopper.
In the conventional outlet chute 1 of such an outlet device, as shown in FIG. 1, coins 2 are pushed out of a payout hopper into a lower inlet 3 of an arciform curved outlet chute passage 4 in the horizontal direction as shown by an arrow A and pushed up from an upper outlet 5 into a vertically extending escalator passage 7 of an escalator 6 connected to the upper outlet 5 of the outlet chute 1.
The conventional curved outlet chute passage 4, as shown in FIG. 2 is composed of a coin supporting back plate 8, outside and inside edge plate 11 and 12, which are positioned at the outside and inside with respect to the center of the radius of curvature of the curved outlet chute passage 4, respectively, and outside and inside front plates 15 and 16 which are rigidly secured to the back plate 8 together with the edge plates 11 and 12 by means of screws 13 and 14, respectively and have extensions 15a and 16a beyond the coin guiding tracks 9 and 10 of the edge plates 11 and 12 respectively, to engage outer peripheral portions of the coins to guide the coins in the curved outlet chute passage 4 and to prevent the coins from dropping out of the passage.
Such a conventional outlet device as mentioned above has drawbacks such that if a deformed coin is pushed in the guiding passage by a trailing coin, the front end of the deformed coin may be pushed over the rear end of the preceding coin or the trailing coin may be pushed into the under side of the rear end of the deformed coin whereby jamming the guiding passage, and even if upward movement of a normal coin is resisted by weight of a number of preceding coins to cause the rear end of the normal coin to be spaced from the back plate, the front end of the trailing coin may be pushed into the under side of the rear end of the normal coin whereby also jamming the guiding passage so that no coin is delivered from the outlet chute.